Friday, January 16, 2009

Cold Metal Jacket

My snowman committed suicide this morning.

It's -14 degrees. School is cancelled due to "cold". Seriously. I stepped outside to retrieve something from my car and my snowman looked over mournfully and said, "I just can't take it. Sorry." And blew his head off.

On my way back in to call CSI: Snowman, I stomped my feet on the front deck and heard a loud POP POP POP! I ducked a bit thinking another snowman might be taking a few of us out with him in one of those "...before turning the gun on himself" stories you see in the news. Instead, it was just the nails popping and cracking on the other end of the plank of wood. Great. Another item on the Spring to do list.

Mrs. Nitmos and I have a set of snow shoes. Real nice ones, in fact. So nice that I feel guilty not using them as much as we should. We always talk about taking a trip up north and finding some trails to trudge around on but then we realize, you know, it's cold out. Who wants to walk around in the cold?

Already Mrs. Nitmos tolerates a lot with me dragging her to various races at ungodly hours on cold fall mornings. You'd think I wouldn't push the envelope right? Clearly, you haven't been reading this blog for long. One of my favorite things to do is see exactly how long folks will tolerate my behavior. And then push just a bit more.

The recent Runner's World had an article on snow shoe racing. For some reason, I had no idea this existed. Running and racing....in snow shoes? Oh, God, my calves ache in pure joy just thinking about it. Of course, I'll need special winter racing gear. Probably one of those awesome hooded one piece jump suits that the Olympic speed skaters wear (and an extra sock to ahem fill out the pants).

This is something I must check into. If I'm going to live in the arctic, might as well make the best of it right? Here's a link to a snow shoe racing organization for anyone interested. At least this would bridge the Fall and Spring running seasons and get us through the depressing suicidal snowman weeks!

I wonder, though, do they serve cups of hot chocolate at the aid stations? If you get hurt, do they wrap it in a heat pack?

Is there anything called a Snow Shoe Marathon?

Sorry, Mrs. Nitmos, but you bought the snow shoes for us. You should have seen the logical conclusion. Everything - everything - can be turned into a running event.

Now what did I do with the kids' pogo stick?

Happy trails._________________________________

Huge well wishes go out to Vanilla and RazZ running their first marathon this weekend. Also, in the same race, Kristina will be BQ-ing. Good luck, all!

28 comments:

School's been cancelled here that last 2 days. Wimps. Snowshoeing is a lot of fun...but really a bigtime workout. It's the most fun if you're not on a trail, too. If you're on a trail, and the snow is packed down, and you could be moving faster in shoes without snowshoes...that gets old.

It's now the icy roads that affect my winter running, it is the freezing of my hands and feet! My brother recently tried running in snow shoes and said it really was no fun as he had a hard time moving forward. Anyways, I really enjoy reading your blog and wish you good luck in your winter runs. I have also started a running blog and hope you'll check it out: